


Avatar: The Last Beifong

by flyingghoti



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Antagonist Katara - Freeform, Antagonist Sokka, Avatar Toph Beifong, Gen, I have no idea if I intend to keep this going for three seasons but don't count on it - Freeform, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Protagonist Azula, Protagonist Zuko, Role Reversal, Same Characters Different Circumstances, Sokka is still a goof but now he's an EVIL goof - Freeform, Universe Alteration, Zuzu is doing his very best - Freeform, everything changed when the water tribes attacked, it's not easy being Azula's brother in any universe - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:15:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26315539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyingghoti/pseuds/flyingghoti
Summary: "Fire. Air. Water. Earth. My aunties used to tell me stories about the old days, a time of peace, when the Avatar kept balance between the Fire Nation, Air Nomads, Water Tribes, and Earth Kingdom. But that all changed when the Water Tribes attacked. Only the Avatar mastered all four elements. Only he could stop the ruthless waterbenders. But when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years have passed and the Water Tribes are nearing victory in the war. Five years ago, my father, uncle, and cousin journeyed to the Earth Kingdom to help fight against the Water Tribes, leaving me and my brother alone. Some people believe that the Avatar was never reborn into the Earth Kingdom, and that the cycle is broken. But my brother never lost hope. He still believes that, somehow, the Avatar will return to save the world."
Comments: 5
Kudos: 48





	1. Imbalance

The black basalt was rough and jagged but pleasantly warm under her hands as she clambered up the steep slope, ignoring her older brother’s extended hand. He seemed unsurprised by her refusal to accept his help, and merely turned up and looked further up the mountain toward the gently smoldering caldera.

“There’s a cave a little further up,” he said. “Looks like a good spot for an iguanacrab nest.”

“I’m surprised at you, Zuzu,” she replied, mockingly. “You’d raid a nest? Take the itty bitty eggs and leave their poor mother bereft?”

“No,” he said. “We’ll have to catch the mother too. Lo and Li need the protein and there’s nothing else to eat on this island. Come on.”

Her face soured. He hadn’t asked for an apology - he never did - but she felt judgement lurking under his even monotone. It would be easier if, just once, he got angry with her. He used to, when they were children. She used to love making him lose his temper. But that had changed after the raid on Ember Island, when he decided that he would take charge of her safety - as if _she_ needed _his_ protection! Now, no matter how badly she messed up, no matter how much danger it put them in, he never let her see so much as a hint of disappointment.

She hated him for it.

Wordlessly, she stalked past him and continued up a path laid down by an ancient lava flow without looking back. She heard him fall in silently behind her and increased her pace, ignoring the pain in her feet and ankles. She was exhausted, but would rather die than show it. She let herself draw in power from the churning magma she could feel just below the stone.

“Careful,” he said from behind her.

“I wasn’t going to _release_ it,” she snapped. “Just enjoying the heat. Anyway, there’s no one around for miles.”

“We should stop and take a rest.”

She turned. “I have the sun on my back and a volcano under my feet; I can walk for hours. But I know you never really attuned to fire very well, so go ahead and rest if you need to. I’ll meet you at the cave.”

“Azula,” he said warningly. “Slow your breathing. Send your energy back into the ground.”

“Blazes, Zuko, you sound just like Uncle. I can handle it.”

“There’s no reason…”

But she had already started walking upwards again. She heard a sigh and the sound of footprints resumed behind her.

* * *

The “cave”, when they reached it, was barely the size of a small room and, more to the point, was completely empty. She felt a strange thrill even as her stomach grumbled and her anger rose.

“Well,” she said lightly, “I suppose it was worth it for the climb and the pleasant conversation. It’s good that we get a little sibling quality time, don’t you think?”

But Zuko wasn’t listening. He was resting his hand on one wall of the cave. “Do you feel something?”

“What’s the matter, Zuzu? Energy of the volcano getting to you? Have you tried slowing your breathing?”

“Azula, I’m telling you, I can sense an energy…”

“You’re probably just hungry!” she retorted. “I certainly am, after you led me all the way up this volcano for _nothing!_ I’m going to have blisters for _days_ , it’s seaweed soup for dinner again, and now I have to listen to you prattle on about some weird _energy_ in the walls like you’re some kind of actual competent firebender and not just an _embarrassment!_ ”

He turned toward her and paled. “Azula…”

She looked down at her hands. Bright blue arcs of static were leaping from fingertip to fingertip. The smell of ozone joined the smell of sulfur and hot basalt.

“It’s not too late,” Zuko said urgently. “Breathe with me, Azula.”

“You need to go, Zuko,” she said hollowly.

“I’m not…”

“Go NOW!” she said, as a small arc leapt from her right hand to the ground, just a few inches from her brother’s foot. “Get out of this cave! I’ll be fine! You need to _go_!”

He gave her a scared, desperate look, but he turned and ran. Good. She couldn’t hold back much longer. Another small bolt leapt from her hair to the ceiling. When she went off, would the cave absorb it or would it concentrate the blast outward like a parabolic dish? She didn’t know. Her father had told her he’d teach her how to manage lightning… when he came back home.

The air was crackling audibly now, and she could feel each of her hairs stand up in its turn, like orderly little soldiers at attention. She’d lied to Zuko when she said she was sure she would be fine.

She felt her stomach roiling with energy. And then, all at once, out it came.

* * *

Zuko felt the change in the air only a heartbeat before the shockwave hit him. The crash of thunder threw him to the rocky ground, and he rolled for a good ten feet before he could catch himself. Dazed, deafened, scraped, bruised, and bleeding all over, he nonetheless managed to pull himself up to his elbows and look up at the cave, now partly hidden through a haze of smoke and heat shimmer. Then the mountain itself rumbled and for one terrifying moment Zuko thought that Azula had somehow managed to set the whole volcano off.

And then, out of nowhere, a burst of unbearably bright white light burst from the mouth of the cave. Not another blast of lightning, just light, so bright he had to turn away. His first thought was: _any Water Tribe ship for five miles around must have seen that_.

Then the ground began to move, and all he could think was: _Azula_.

* * *

It would have been difficult to tell whether the teenager there on the ship’s broad upper deck was a master fighter or a master dancer, were it not for the presence of the three older men attacking him with whale-toothed spears. He parried one thrust with his short-handled club, dropped to his knee to avoid another, and then shot his free hand up to grab the third in mid-thrust. He rolled backward, using the weight of his body to wrench the spear free from his assailant, then whipped it around in a low circle to knock the feet out from under all three attackers at a go.

“Good effort,” he said, holding out a hand to the nearest man to help him back to his feet. “Now you can see what I mean about fighting with spears in close quarters. Even on a ship this large, you don’t have the room to…”

He was interrupted by a loud crack followed by a low rumble. Instinctively, the boy looked upward to see only a blue sky above.

“Beat for fire,” he called. The ship’s drummer began a steady thrumming beat and almost at once the deck was swarming with crew rushing purposefully to their stations. The ship’s captain bowed as she approached the boy’s side.

“Lightningbenders, sir?” the captain asked.

“Maybe,” said the boy. “I didn’t see it, but I heard it. From the east, I think.”

“There’s an uninhabited volcanic island in that direction. Could have been a natural eruption.”

“Could have been," he agreed. "But can I borrow a spyglass, Captain Hamka, just in case?”

She nodded and hurried off. The boy walked to the starboard side rail and looked out. He could just make out the shape of the volcano in the distance. Another great rumble washed over the ship, _basso profundo_ , as though the entire volcano had shivered in an unexpected draft.

“An earthquake,” the captain said, as she handed him a small telescope. “Definitely a natural eruption, then.”

“Don’t bet on it,” Sokka said as he peered out at the unearthly white light that poured from the side of the volcano. “Prepare an albatross to send a message to Chief Hakoda. Tell him I’m going to be late getting home. I think we might have just found the Avatar.”


	2. The Girl in the Volcano

After the brightness of the mysterious light, the abrupt darkness of the small cave was almost impenetrable. Zuko could make out only two things: the shape of his little sister, collapsed on the floor, and the shape of the figure bent over her. By the time his conscious mind had processed what he had seen, his swords were already drawn and he was rushing headlong toward whoever was there.

What he could not see was the uneven rock of the cave floor, which sent him sprawling. His Uncle’s relentless sword drills kicked in and he managed to roll in midair to avoid landing on his own blades — or, worse, landing on Azula with his blades in the middle — and he landed on the unyielding volcanic rock on his back, driving the breath from his lungs and temporarily paralyzing his diaphragm. As he lay there struggling desperately to draw breath, he heard an unfamiliar voice.

“What is your PROBLEM?”

It was the voice of a young girl, younger even than Azula. There was shock in it, maybe even anger, but not malice, as best as he could tell. He focused his energy on calming his spasming diaphragm and, at last, took a deep and welcome breath. He rolled awkwardly onto his side and sat up on an elbow. He could see the shape a little better now; she was short, broad in the shoulder, and a faint and rapidly fading aura of the light which had blasted out of the cave still clung to her. She was not bent over to look at Azula as he had originally thought — instead, she was kneeling next to her with one hand touching the ground between her bare feet.

“My sister,” he managed.

“She was like this when I found her!” the strange girl said. “She’s breathing, though.”

As if on cue, Azula whimpered softly. Zuko forgot his injuries and was kneeling next to her before her eyes opened.

“You’re okay,” he said.

“You’re not,” she said. “You look like shit.”

“Language,” he chided. “Does anything hurt?”

“No,” she said. “I’m just a little drained. Help me sit up.”

Zuko helped Azula up. She startled when she saw they weren’t alone, and with a flick of her wrist she had a handful of blue flames. Zuko didn’t even bother scolding her for firebending; that was the least of their problems at the moment.

“Hey there,” the mystery girl said, with a slight wave. The blue light reflected strangely off her eyes, and Zuko realized with a start that she had severe cataracts. He could also see now that the cave was larger than before; there was a new opening in one wall, and behind it a chamber too large to see in the faint light.

“Who is this, Zuko?” Azula asked.

“That’s a really good question,” he replied. “Who are you? How did you get here? Are there more of you? What’s behind that wall?”

“Wow, okay,” she said. “Nice to meet you too, I guess. I’m Toph, I don’t know, sort of, and not much.”

“Sort of?” Zuko said. “Sort of what?”

“There’s sort of more of me,” she said. “Come on out, buddy!”

There was a deep growling noise, and a massive striped head peered through the opening to the other chamber.

“Who is _that_?” Azula asked.

“A friend,” Toph said. “Badgermoles don’t really _do_ names. They’re more smell-oriented.”

“I can... _tell_ ,” Azula said.

“So, I’m guessing from Hot Pants here that we made it to the Fire Nation, huh?” Toph said. “I always knew we could tunnel under the straits.”

“You _tunneled_ here from the Earth Kingdom?” Zuko said. “But that must be a full day’s sail away from here.”

Toph shrugged. “I like being underground. It’s like being on the surface, but with more ground. So what are you two doing climbing volcanoes? You planning on some lava-skiing?”

“ _Lava-skiing?_ ” Zuko said. “Do we look suicidal to you?”

“No, but for a second there you looked like you might be fun,” she said. “My mistake, obviously.”

“I’m Azula,” Azula said. “My brother Zuko here, who is _extremely_ not fun, had the clever idea to go hunting iguanacrabs up here. As you can tell from our large collection of iguanacrab eggs,” she said, gesturing to nothing, “this was a great idea and not a waste of time at all.”

“You were looking for an iguanacrab nest in a cave?” Toph said. “They only _hibernate_ in caves. They make their nests on warm rocks. There’s a nest about fifty feet from here. And I’m starving, so if we’re getting lunch, let’s go already.”

“How can you _possibly_ know there’s a nest fifty feet from here?” Zuko demanded. “Can you even see?”

“Wait… you’re right!” Toph said. “I _can’t_ see! I spent so much time underground that I must have lost my sight! Oh, whatever will become of me? I’ll have to become a helpless ward of the state! Because obviously sight is the one and only sense and we definitely don’t have any others! That explains why badgermoles can’t possibly exist and there definitely isn’t one five feet away from you!”

The badgermole snorted.

“Tell you what, Hotman Obvious,” Toph continued, “I’ll make a bet. If I can show you the iguanacrab nest, I get your share of the eggs. If I can’t, then you can have my share. That’s only fair, right?”

“But… if we don’t find the nest, you won’t _have_ a share…”

“He’ll take the bet,” Azula said. “Now come on, I’m starving.”

* * *

“If I may, Prince Sokka,” Captain Hamka asked, once the albatross was away and the new course had been set, “how could this be the Avatar? The Avatar died a century ago.”

Sokka winced a bit at the title; Hamka was a Northerner, and a bit of pomposity was to be expected, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. He stretched and cracked his neck.

“I mean, yeah, probably,” he said. “But I always thought the story sounded a little too easy. The Sages say the Avatar wasn’t reborn into the Fire Nation. So either the cycle is broken forever or the Avatar wasn’t in Ba Sing Se when she was supposed to be. Which seems more likely?”

“So there might be a hundred year old earthbender at the top of that volcano?”

“She was an earthbender a century ago,” Sokka reminded her. “By now she’s an... everythingbender, I guess. A master of all four elements.”

“In that case, I hope you’re wrong,” Hamka said.

“Don’t worry, captain,” Sokka said, giving her a friendly pat on the shoulder. “I usually am. I’m gonna go take a nap. Come get me when we get closer.”

* * *

Zuko wasn’t sure how he’d been put in charge of carrying the eggs back down the mountain, but it hadn’t improved his mood. The sun was low in the sky now, and the black stone was treacherous. Worse, he now found himself in the company of a malodorous badgermole and not one but _two_ girls making sarcastic comments the whole way down. Suddenly his feet slipped out from under him and he landed heavily in a stone chair that had appeared out of nowhere beneath him.

“Watch your footing there,” Toph called back cheerfully, without looking back. “I wouldn’t want any of my two shares worth of eggs smashed!”

“You just… bend openly like that?” Azula said.

“Yeah, of course,” Toph said. “We’re benders, Hot Pants, bending is what we _do_.”

“You can’t just leave this here,” Zuko said, getting up from the chair. “If the Water Tribe finds it…”

“What, they’ll get it damp?” Toph said. “Somehow I think it’ll be fine.”

“ _No_ ,” Zuko said, through gritted teeth. “If the Water Tribe, having been alerted to our presence by the _massive column of light_ , finds it, they’ll know that some earthbender must have been here, and they’ll know exactly which direction we were heading.”

“Hm,” Toph said. “You’re right, they won’t know _which_ earthbender was here, which means they won’t know how cool I am. Well, I’d sign it, but it’s not my best work, and writing was never exactly my strong suit anyway.”

“Just get rid of it!” Zuko snapped.

“Fine, Broody Britches.” With a slight turn of her ankle, the ground was smooth black stone again.

“Broody Britches?” Zuko said. “Azula is Hot Pants, and I’m _Broody Britches_?”

“Hey, if the britches fit,” Azula said.

“I am not _broody!_ ” Zuko insisted.

“So where we heading, anyway?” Toph said.

“Our weird aunties are waiting for us back at camp,” Azula said.

“They’re not…” Zuko said, and then reconsidered. “Don’t call them weird.”

“Camp?” Toph said. “Your aunts took you camping on a volcano?”

“They’re not our real aunts, and it’s not a _vacation_ ,” Zuko said. “We’re on the run.”

“Because of me,” Azula said cheerfully.

“Because of _both_ of us,” Zuko said. “I’m a firebender too, remember?”

Azula put on a theatrical thinking face. “Oh right, I guess you are. Technically, anyway.”

 _Just because I don’t explode and get us kicked out of town every time I get angry…_ but Zuko bit that thought back before it made it across his lips. Azula’s lack of control wasn’t her fault. If he were a better firebender, he could have been teaching her instead of spending all those years waiting helplessly on Ember Island for his father and uncle to come home.

“ _Cool_ ,” Toph said, sincerely. “What’d you do, Hot Pants? Wait, no, let me guess: flaming bag of hippo-cow manure on the mayor’s doorstep?”

Azula laughed — her _real_ laugh, not the vicious, mirthless one he had gotten used to hearing these past few years. Toph’s bravado about the Water Tribes might be a front, but at least it had achieved one worthwhile thing. Zuko even let himself smile. Well, a bit, anyway.

* * *

Back at camp, Azula lit the fire with a snap of her fingers. She didn’t even bother to look up to see Zuko’s reaction.

“Oh, I’m _so sorry_ , Zuzu,” she said. “I’m sure that the thousands of Water Tribe spies living on this deserted island probably saw that and will leap out from the non-existent bushes to attack us any moment now.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Zuko said. “Better not to waste time messing around with spark rocks anyway. We need to eat and then pack up.”

“Pack up?” Li and Lo protested in unison.

“We might have been seen,” Zuko said. “It’s nobody’s fault, but we can’t stay the night. I know we’re all tired…”

“We’re _more_ than tired, Zuko,” Li said.

“We only arrived this morning,” Lo added.

“It is what it is,” Zuko said. “Toph, you’re welcome to come along, as long as you can avoid earthbending.”

“Avoid earthbending?” she said. “I _see_ with earthbending. And why do you keep talking about the Water Tribe like you’re scared of them?”

“If you’re not scared, you’re a fool,” Zuko said. “I’ve seen the earthbender prison ships. Nothing but wood and metal, miles away from the nearest land. If you wind up on one of them, you’ll never ‘see’ again. But even that’s better than the ice cave where Azula will wind up if you give her away.”

“What?” Toph seemed genuinely confused. “Why would the Water Tribes imprison earthbenders and firebenders?”

Azula gave her a puzzled look. “To stop rebellions, of course.”

“Uh huh,” Toph said. “Okay, I’m going to need you to back up a bit.”

“How can you have come here from the western Earth Kingdom and know _nothing_ about the Water Tribes cracking down on the rebels?” Zuko demanded.

“Look, I lived a very sheltered life, okay?” Toph said. “My parents always treated me as just a helpless blind girl. And then after we moved to Ba Sing Se…”

Lo and Li gasped. Zuko glared at her. “This just stopped being funny.”

“What?” Toph protested. “Why are you all looking at me like that?”

“We’re looking for gills,” Azula said. “Because if you don’t have any, I’m not sure why you’d claim you lived in the Drowned City.”

“No, _Ba Sing Se_ ,” Toph said. “The capital of the Earth Kingdom? Largest city in the world?”

“The Water Tribes flooded Ba Sing Se a century ago,” Li said.

“The great city is now a great lake, contained by the old city walls,” Lo continued.

“That’s impossible,” Toph insisted. “That can’t be right. I just…”

“Toph,” Zuko said, “how long _were_ you in that volcano?”

* * *

_even as she moved through the bending form she could feel the wrongness of it the heat too close the panicked musk of the badgermole in her nose and then solid rock was liquid rock rushing towards them and she couldn’t bend it couldn’t feel it couldn’t control it_

_and instead of fear there was calm and certainty and she knew she had bent magma before (she had never seen magma before) and now the heat was inside them there was fire inside them they were earth and they were fire and so was the magma rushing towards them_

_and now the heat flowed around them (they were the heat) and the wind rushed down the long tunnel they’d built (they were the wind) and the flow of the magma ceased (they were the flow) and the rock encircled them (they were the rock) and the energy inside them and the energy of the badgermole and the energy of the stone wrapped all around them (they were the energy, they were above all things the energy) and they felt the end of time fall —_

* * *

“Toph?” Azula said. “Are you still with us?”

“This isn’t...,” Toph said. She wasn’t used to being lost for words. “I don’t… I’m not a hundred and twelve years old!”

“The war is a century old,” Zuko said, “Either you’re lying for no reason when you say you’ve never heard of it… or you, somehow, were in there the whole time. It sounds impossible, but my uncle has told me stranger stories.”

“Uncle has _made up_ stranger stories, anyway,” Azula said.

“A hundred years…” Toph said. “I can’t believe it. It’s just not...”

Zuko raised his hand, cutting her off. Toph cocked an ear and caught the faint sound of drums echoing over the water. Zuko was already sprinting up to higher ground to look.

“Water Tribe ship,” he said. “Big one.”

“Can we get to our boat?” Azula asked.

“Maybe. If we leave now.”

Li and Lo immediately began throwing everything they could find into bags.

“It’s one ship,” Toph said. “We have three benders. We can…”

“Three benders, two of them untrained, against a Water Tribe warship with dozens of expert combat benders?” Zuko said.

“Sounds like fun,” Azula said.

“Fun way to get you killed,” Zuko said. “I swore to keep you safe. We go to the boat.”

“Who exactly put you in charge?” Toph insisted.

“We did,” said Lo.

“Just now,” Li added.

“If you want to die for no reason, you can stay,” Zuko said. “You’re not my responsibility. But there’s a seat for you on the boat.”

“I’m staying,” Toph insisted. “I can’t do this — a life on the run, hiding my bending. I wouldn’t last a week, and I’d just get you all in trouble.”

“Fine,” Zuko said. “We won’t wait for you. Come on, Azula.”

“I want to see her fight,” Azula protested. “I never get to see earthbenders fighting. Anyway, she’s the first interesting person we’ve met in three years.”

“Broody Britches is right,” Toph said. “You go.”

Zuko grabbed the bags from Li and Lo and slung them over a shoulder. He paused for a moment. “Do you need anything?”

“Just point to where they’re landing. I won’t be able to see them until they’re on solid ground.”

Zuko nodded and pointed. “Good luck, Toph.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm cheating the timeline a bit; Toph's birth is moved forward a century so that she can be the Avatar. This doesn't actually matter at all, I'm just vaguely worried someone will be pedantic about it, I guess?


	3. The Water Prince

As soon as Sokka’s launch touched the shore, a spine of seafloor shot up through the sealskin hull.

“Earthbender!” Sokka called, leaping from the pierced boat, followed by a half-dozen soldiers. “Ice shield!”

Two waterbenders swept a wave up from the ocean over the soldiers’ heads, solidifying just in time to catch a rain of heavy rocks.

“Clear a road!” Sokka called, and another pair of waterbenders sent two waves up and around the landing party. The waves came together on the other side, then rushed forwards. Sokka and the two soldiers flanking him roared a war cry and ran behind it.

He felt it before he saw it — an unexpected spray of water back from the wave in front of him, By the time the jagged knives of volcanic rock broke the surface of the wave, he had already begun his leap — and yet, even so, he felt the tip of one of the rocks graze his arm, slicing through his leather armor as he vaulted over the sudden stone formation. This earthbender was good.

The wave protecting them crashed against a sudden wall of stone hard enough to break off the top half of the wall, but the impact took the wave’s momentum as well. He could hear his waterbenders coming up behind him on ice sleds, but for the moment they were still too far back to help him. Without slowing down, he hooked his club onto the top of the wall and used his momentum to swing himself over.

As he landed he saw her: a young girl, younger than him, dressed in an old-fashioned Earth Kingdom peasant’s dress. She certainly wasn’t the Avatar, but her strong, wide stance was unmistakably nothing to be trifled with. Sokka halted his advance, standing at the ready.

“You’re not who I’m looking for,” Sokka said. “There doesn’t need to be trouble.”

She said nothing, just hawked and spat off to the side.

“That was actually pretty great distance,” Sokka said, genuinely impressed. “Nicely done. Look, none of us want to hurt a true loogie artist. Just tell me where the Avatar is and we’ll go.”

By now, two of the waterbenders had arrived, and the other two soldiers had jumped the wall and were standing at ready. She didn’t look at them — she wasn’t even looking directly at him. But one look at the tension in her muscles and he knew that she was prepared to hold all five of them off.

There was a call behind him — it was one of the waterbenders who had formed the ice shield. “Prince Sokka, a message from Captain Hamka. She’s spotted a small Fire Nation steamboat leaving the island and is in pursuit.”

“Good,” Sokka said, not taking his eyes off the earthbender. “So, the Avatar is running? And leaving a kid to cover her escape? Well, she can’t outrun the flagship of the Northern fleet, and I’m not sure even she can take it down at sea.”

Something flickered in the earthbender’s face. “The Avatar’s not on that ship. Only a few civilians who got caught up in someone else’s mess. If I tell you where she is, will you let the ship go?”

Sokka nodded.

“Then it’s nice to meet you, Your Highness,” she said. “My name is Toph Beifong, and I’m the Avatar.”

Sokka’s jaw dropped. “You? You’re just a kid.”

“Well, you’re just a teenager,” she said.

“True, but I was expecting someone a bit older. What’d you do, take a nap for a century?”

“Call off the pursuit of that ship,” she said. “Do that, I’ll go with you, and you’ll get whatever answers you want.”

Sokka hesitated — but only for a moment. “Send a message to Hamka. Call off pursuit of the Fire Nation boat. Oh, and ask her to send a launch to pick us up. Ours seems to have a hole in it.”

* * *

Azula stuck her head down into the dank engine room, where Zuko, shirtless and soaked in sweat, was frantically shoveling more coal into the engines.

“They’re turning around!” she called.

Zuko stood so quickly he smashed his head on a steam pipe. Through the stars, he heard Azula laughing, and gritted his teeth. “What do you _mean_ , turning around?”

“I mean the verb indicating ‘rotating through a half circle’,” Azula replied, rolling her eyes.

Zuko threw down the shovel and climbed the ladder to the deck two rungs at a time. From the stern he could see that she was telling the truth — the Water Tribe ship that had been rapidly gaining on them had turned and was moving back the way it came.

“But why?” he said under his breath.

“Does it matter?” Azula said from over his shoulder.

Zuko looked back at her, then back at the ship, then at the island they’d just escaped, then back to Azula. He thought for a moment.

“No,” he said at last. “It doesn’t. If we hurry we can make Shu Jing by nightfall.”

* * *

Toph couldn’t see anything, not while tied up and strapped to the back of the Water Tribe soldier who was carrying her back to the shore. All she could hear was the never-ending chattering of the increasingly annoying young prince.

“I’ve never actually heard of anyone with Earthsight before,” he was saying. “I met a Swamp Tribe bender with Watersight, though. She… mostly just swam a lot. You’ve never seen wrinklier fingers. Anyway, I guess I’m just lucky you haven’t learned any other bending schools yet. You know, the truth is, I didn’t really have a plan for what I’d do if I found a fully realized Avatar. And that’s not really like me! I’m usually a plans guy! But sometimes life just hands you a moment and you have to react, you know?”

Toph said nothing. She couldn’t see, but she could still _listen_.

“Anyway, look, don’t worry,” the prince continued. “I can promise no one wants to hurt you. Honestly I think this could work out great for everyone! Just keep an open mind when you’re talking with my dad, okay? The best path toward balance and peace will be if all the other nations just stop the pointless rebellions and join up with us, and you can make that happen. We’re not looking to exterminate anybody. We just need some space. We’ve spent ten thousand years living on ice floes and in mangrove swamps!”

She heard the words, but she was listening for something else. It would have to come soon; the footprints were starting to transition from leather-on-stone to leather-on-sand. 

“Your predecessors made the decision for everyone that the boundaries of the nations were forever unchanging and everyone would just have to deal with it. And now history’s giving you a chance to fix that. Honestly, I think this is pretty exciting.”

Ah.

“That _is_ interesting,” she said. “I’d never really thought about whether the Water Tribes might feel constrained by their ancestral homelands. But there’s something you haven’t thought of too.”

“I’m all ears,” the prince said.

She snorted. “ _Yeah_ you are. They were the first thing I saw.”

“Hey!” he said. “I have very normal-sized ears! The hairstyle just accentuates them is all!”

“Well, Your Earfulness, the thing you didn’t think of was… where is the badgermole?”

“The what?” he asked.

At that moment, an exploding vortex of black sand and angry teeth exploded beneath them. Toph was thrown clear of the waterbender carrying her and landed at last back on solid ground. She moved her hands and a spinning disc of obsidian shot out of the volcanic scree and zipped neatly through the ropes binding her arms and legs. She then hurled it at the prince, who was already back on his feet. The prince shattered the disc with a backhand of his club, but now the furious badgermole was advancing on him. And then, to Toph’s amazement, the prince dropped to a crouch and began hitting a few random rocks with his club. And then… he started singing.

> _Oh badgermoles, they love a good song_  
>  _They’ll listen to it all day long_  
>  _So now, giant friend, please go real far_  
>  _So I can recapture the Avatar_

“Everybody! Lead it away!” he shouted, and the dazed Water Tribe soldiers all began repeating the inane chorus, tapping out a rhythm on the stones with their weapons. The badgermole stopped its attack, and as the soldiers began walking away, still singing, the badgermole followed. The prince stood, staring Toph down.

“Not my first time meeting one,” he explained. “Now, are you going to get in this nice launch and go for a ride with us, or are my waterbenders going to submerge this entire island?”

“I don’t think they’ll do that while their prince is stuck here,” she said, as she drove a spike of basalt through the second launch.

“Aw, _man_ ,” the prince said. “Great, now Captain Hamka’s going to be pissed at me for losing _two_ of her launches. Thanks a lot.”

“More where that came from,” Toph said. “You can’t get off this island unless you take me down.”

“You can’t get off this island even _if_ you take me down,” he replied.

“Then I’ll just have to do it for fun,” she said.

She knew he was fast, and yet he still took her by surprise, whipping the boomerang off his back and whirling it towards her. She sidestepped it and slid the ground he was standing on backward away from him, but to her surprise he used the momentum of the shifting ground to propel himself into a standing front tuck. He landed smoothly at the very same moment that something unseen struck her knees hard from behind and knocked her off her feet.

That stupid boomerang! She had dodged it on its way out because she could see which direction he threw it, but the return path was too chaotic to even guess at. As long as he didn’t let it hit the ground, he had a guaranteed way to take her down — and now he knew it. Even without it, he was a serious threat; he was obviously highly skilled and had been specially trained in how to take down an earthbender. With it? She couldn’t let him have that advantage.

He was leaping towards her now, and in a moment he’d be on her. But right now she needed to focus on getting the boomerang out of the equation. She slammed a fist into the ground and shot up a pillar of stone that sent the boomerang flying off sideways away from the field of battle. She heard it splash into the nearby sea just as he landed on her. The heavy club slammed into her arm and she screamed in pain. With her other arm, she sent a wave of the loose scree flying at him, driving him off of her and allowing herself to roll away and get herself back to her feet. Her left forearm was broken — how had he discerned her dominant arm so quickly? — and she used the other to fashion a makeshift cast out of earth and rock to pin it safely to her torso.

“Sorry about your arm,” he said, panting, and the worst part was that he meant it.

“Sorry I threw your boomerang into the ocean.”

“It’ll come back to me,” he said. “Always does. Now, can we please end this before you get hurt any worse?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Prince Bigears, are you getting tired?”

“Okay,” he said, as he pulled a dagger from the sheath at the back of his belt. “Feeling less conflicted now.”

Between the pain and her focus on his next attack, Toph didn’t see Azula until the wall of flame knocked the prince off his feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is obsidian glass or earth? Deep questions being raised, and ignored, in this chapter.


	4. A World in a Grain of Sand

Azula’s first blast had sent the young man sprawling, and now she pumped an entire lifetime of rage and resentment into the second. A gout of blue flame leapt from her hands so powerfully it pushed her backwards. The nimble young Water Tribesman managed to roll, but he still caught the brunt of it on his back —- had he not been wearing leather armor still damp from the launch his clothes would have been set alight. As it was, there was an audible sizzle and he cried out in pain from the hot steam trapped against his skin.

Toph took advantage of his distraction, and used her good hand to wrap stone manacles around his ankles and wrists, leaving him pinned face down on the rock. Azula advanced on him again, but a hand landed hard on her shoulder.

“No!” Zuko said. “Not like this, Azula.”

“I wasn’t going to _kill_ him,” Azula protested.

“The other soldiers are coming back,” Toph said. “We need to move. Where’s your ship?”

“This way,” Zuko said. “Come on, Azula.”

“No, no, take your time,” the Water Tribe soldier said. “Women dig scars. Maybe a nice brand? Really, just have at it, my body is your canvas.”

Azula scowled. “Toph, can’t you gag him too?”

“No _time_ , Azzie,” Zuko said.

That pulled her attention away from the soldier on the ground. “Did you just call me…”

“NOW,” Toph said, physically turning the ground Azula was standing on so she was facing back the way they’d come.

“This isn’t over, Water Tribe!” Azula called over her shoulder as she began to run.

“That much we agree on!” the soldier called back, his face still wedged against the hard rock.

“You weren’t supposed to come back,” Toph said as they ran.

“Yell at me later,” Zuko said. “I’m sorry, we don’t have time to go back for the badgermole.”

“It’s already back underground and will meet us at the ship,” she said. “I can feel it.”

“Oh good,” said Azula, “once it’s on the ship we can find out what it smells like _wet_.”

They crested an outcropping of rock and Azula saw the horrible little boat right where Zuko had beached it on the black sandy shore. But now the tide was receding fast, and already most of the boat was no longer submerged.

Zuko had noticed the same thing. “Can you bend sand?” he asked. “We might need a bit of a push to launch.”

“With some effort,” Toph said. “I don’t know how fast it’ll be.”

There was a shout from behind them; the other Water Tribe soldiers had apparently found their compatriot.

“It’s going to have to be pretty fast,” Zuko said, putting on another burst of speed.

* * *

Toph knelt and touched the ground with her good hand, pushing her fingers into the loose sand, hot from the sun. Her senses went out through the maze of tiny particles, leaping across microscopic air and water gaps like electricity across a synapse, becoming fuzzier and fuzzier the further they went. Pure sand was rare in both Gaoling and Ba Sing Se, so she had never really learned to handle its idiosyncrasies. The art of working with thousands or millions of loose and disjointed particles was its own unique skill, its practitioners the earthbending equivalent of the sculptor she’d met in Ba Sing Se who carved statues from individual grains of rice. Toph, who preferred to work on a more monumental scale, found the very concept baffling.

At least this sand was almost purely volcanic. Of the hundreds of different kinds of sand Master Yu had droned on about in his interminable lectures on earthbending theory, this was perhaps the easiest. If this had been a coral beach, they would have been in serious trouble; even the greatest sandbenders struggled with aragonite sands, which danced on the border between geology and biology. But this was just igneous rock fresh from the volcano, the same basalt and obsidian and pumice and olivine that made up the rest of the island. She knew rock. Rock had been her first friend.

Zuko was yelling something. She didn’t bother to pay attention. He was probably telling her that the Water Tribe soldiers were coming, but it didn’t change anything. Getting the boat off the beach was not optional; either she would finish the job before they came or they would be taken prisoner. Nothing Zuko could say could affect those facts. It wasn’t like she could have done anything to defend them with her attention fixed on the sand; she had stopped even keeping track of where people were standing.

It wasn’t enough merely to feel the boat; sand or no sand, she could have felt the weight of the shabby old boat’s bow shifting with the waves from a quarter mile away. There was something unique about such large metallic objects; they had their own special echo, almost as though they were in conversation with the earth that had birthed them. Living things had their own echo — they too had once been earth — and she had to navigate her senses around the mussels buried in the sand and the badgermole digging steadily towards them from inland in order to focus her energies on the junction between the boat and the beach. She would have to recruit the individual sand particles under the boat to assist her, almost one by one — and, unlike the indefatigable rock of the volcano behind them which had responded instantly to her thoughts, these individual grains of sand had to be coaxed and nudged to overcome their isolation and loneliness.

The Water Tribe prince was here; she could hear him talking with Zuko, who she now realized was standing behind her with his swords raised. She wanted to warn him that the prince was a skilled fighter, but in truth her only chance of saving Azula, Li, and Lo was for Zuko to keep the Water Tribe soldiers distracted long enough for her to actually shift the sand holding the boat’s prow on the shore.

And then something shifted. All of a sudden she was no longer dealing with individual grains, separated from their fellows by seawater and air. A critical mass had emerged, and suddenly the sand remembered that it was not individual grains but a great mass of rock, temporarily broken apart, destined to be reformed in the great furnace below the island as all rock someday would be. She could feel its excitement, its delight at being under her touch, and she laughed with joy as the beach told her it was hers.

* * *

“We’re out of time, Toph! Get into the ship!”

But she didn’t respond, just kept kneeling down there on the beach in impassive silence. Zuko cursed under his breath. “Stay here, Azula!” he shouted, knowing she probably wouldn’t pay him any more mind than Toph, and leapt down from the bow, drawing his swords as he did.

There were seven of them in total, all of them approaching the beach in a horseshoe formation with the waterbenders coming in from the sides on ice sleds to pin them hard against the sea. Of course, with four waterbenders in front of them, the sea at his back was itself a deadly combatant.

Zuko caught the eye of the soldier Azula had saved Toph from, who stood directly in front of him, dead in the middle of the Water Tribe formation. He was no older than Zuko himself, but his finely worked armor was clearly the best seal-leather, embossed with a clan crest Zuko couldn’t help but recognize, since it was one of the four such crests that decorated every Water Tribe flag. This, then, was no ordinary soldier, but a member of Chief Hakoda’s own clan — the closest thing to an aristocrat the Southern Tribe had.

“Let me guess: you’re the firebender’s brother?” he said. “I’m not here hunting a rogue firebender. I’m just here to talk with the earthbender girl. If you get back on the boat with your sister, we don’t have a problem.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Zuko said, leveling the twin swords.

“Nice swords,” the Southerner said. “But you should really trade them in for a good meal.”

“They’re a family heirloom,” Zuko said. “They belonged to my great-grandfather. Maybe you’ve heard of him. His name was Sozin.”

“Well now,” the Southerner said. “A descendant of the last Fire Lord. I really _would_ have let you get back on the boat and go, you know.”

“My family owes yours a debt,” Zuko said. “You’re welcome to collect.”

“Decent stance,” the Southerner said approvingly, giving him a look over. “But you learned it from a book.”

“It was a very good book,” Zuko growled. “And I read all the footnotes. Tell your waterbenders to stand down and then come face me.”

The Southerner sighed theatrically and drew his wolfjaw dagger. “This won’t take long.”

Then Toph laughed. And then the world disappeared.


	5. Fire That's Closest Kept...

Azula covered her eyes as the beach erupted with a spray of black sand. She felt the boat rock and heard Li and Lo scream from below decks as it was pushed out to sea.

“Zuko!” she yelled. “Toph!”

The sand parted around Toph, who was riding the badgermole full tilt down the beach with Zuko behind her. “Start the ship, Hot Pants!” she yelled.

Azula leaped down into the engine room, opened the firebox door, and poured blue flame directly into it without bothering to load it with coal. The boiler was still warm, and her fire soon had it back to a full head of steam. She heard footsteps on the metal decking above; Zuko was back on board and running to the cockpit. The old boat lurched as he turned hard away from the shore.

A wave rocked the boat, then another. The waterbenders. She quickly threw a couple shovels of coal into the firebox and lit them, then clambered up the ladder. Toph was lying flat on the deck, as was the badgermole; both looked miserable.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“You’re asking _me_?” Toph said. “I’m on a _metal ship_ on the _ocean_. May as well ask the anchor.”

Azula looked back over the stern. The sand had mostly settled now, and the four waterbenders stood on the shore, bending in unison. She felt it before she saw it; a rush of thermal energy out of the water as the surface of the ocean began to freeze in a straight line from the shore to their stern. Before it could reach the ship, she let out a primal blast of heat and a jet of blue flame roared out across the surface of the water, melting the ice before it could form.

“Can you bend the sand again?” she asked. “We need another distraction.”

“I lost my connection with it as soon as it was in the air,” Toph said. “It’s fickle stuff, sand.”

Azula frowned, then looked back at the shore. The waterbenders were moving again, preparing another attack, and she wasn’t at all sure she’d be able to stop this one. Toph was useless, Zuko was as good as useless, and Li and Lo were mostly just ballast. It was down to her.

Uncle had told her as a child about lightning, about how it was born out of peace of mind and emotional discipline. Neither of those were things she could honestly list as personal strengths, but she’d generated lightning today nonetheless. Could she do it again? She tried to remember how she’d felt up in that cave on top of the volcano. What had been special about it? She had been mad at Zuko — that wasn’t special, of course. She’d been standing on a volcano, a few feet away from someone who was somehow sealed in rock outside of time — that part was a bit more unusual, and a bit harder to replicate. Still, what option did she have but to try?

She reached out for more heat, but even though the volcano still dominated the horizon and the late afternoon sun still cast its heat on her right cheek, she couldn’t feel anything like what she’d felt climbing the mountain with Zuko that morning. _Zuko_. Still infuriating. The nerve of him, telling her to stay behind while he went off to try and hold off seven Water Tribe soldiers alone, armed with two antique swords and a fire jab that would barely scald a baby! She shouldn’t have listened. Why _had_ she listened?

Because somewhere inside her was still that echoing little voice saying _listen to your brother, he’ll always keep you safe_. Absurd. Cruel of her, honestly, to pick those as her final words. They’d certainly messed Zuko up pretty good over the last three years. She remembered how much those words had changed him, from the easily baited child she’d so loved to tease into the impassive young man who never let himself get angry with her.

She’d been thinking about that earlier, hadn’t she? Yes, and now she was starting to feel something familiar. She sensed the flame in the firebox below leap for a moment as she tapped into it, trying to explore the nameless but familiar emotions warring at the periphery of her mind. That was what she had felt in that cave, wasn’t it? Not a _lack_ of emotion, as Uncle had said, but too many of them…

“What’s going on?” Toph said. “My hair is standing on end.”

“You might want to get below,” Azula said.

“ _How?_ I can’t see a thing on this ship! And you want me to go down a _staircase_?”

“More of a ladder,” Azula said. “Fine then, get back. I’ve only done this once, and never on purpose.”

She began moving her arms as Father used to do, when he made lightning to entertain her as a child. The memory hit hard, intensifying the mixed-up feelings inside her, and she felt a sudden pain that might have been a self-inflicted shock. On the beach, the waterbenders were just finishing up their own attack. She had to act now. Her arm shot out, and...

“Azula?”

She turned to look back towards Zuko, who, to her horror, was standing right behind her. She had no time to scream a warning as the lightning roared through her.

* * *

Sokka opened his eyes slowly and carefully. His ears were ringing, and a haze of dark spots swam across the blue sky above, but as far as he could tell all of his relevant body parts were still attached and mostly undamaged. He sat up, working his jaw to clear his head, to see that a swath of the beach right in front of him had been turned almost to glass. Around him, his soldiers were picking themselves up, and he got unsteadily to his feet to go check on them.

Luckily, the injuries were mostly minor; one waterbender had gotten some fairly serious burns, but a few days in the healing hut would fix her up. But their chance to stop the Avatar’s boat before it got too far out was gone now.

He should have seen it coming; this whole thing had started with an unexpected bolt of lightning, after all. And if the firebender girl and her swordsman brother were in fact descendants of the old royal family, it was hardly surprising that she was a lightningbender, as at least two of Sozin’s grandsons were known to be. Still, the blast of lightning from the stern of the ship had been dramatic even by lightningbender standards — the girl’s raw power was astonishing. If _she_ was the young Avatar’s firebending master…

“Who’s up for a challenge?” he said. All six raised their hands, even the injured woman; he nodded to one of the Northern waterbenders. “I need you to plug the hole in one of the launches with ice and get me back to Hamka’s ship on the double. The rest of you, make a camp here and get started healing those burn wounds; we’ll send for you as soon as we can.”

* * *

Zuko was in pain. That was all he could discern for the moment.

“Hey, Broody Britches,” said a familiar voice. “You’re awake.”

There was something on his face. A wet rag, soaked in what smelled like his aunties’ homemade salve. He reached up for it, but a hand grabbed his.

“Leave it there,” Toph said. “You’ve got a nasty burn.”

“Where’s Azula?” he said. “Is she…”

“She’s not badly injured,” Toph said. “Her hands got a bit burned when she tried to pull the lightning back in. Li’s helping her while Lo steers. Or… no, wait, _Lo_ ’s helping her while _Li_ steers. I think.”

“What was she _thinking_?” he said. “Lightning is dangerous even for people who’ve been trained in it.”

“She was thinking that four waterbenders were about to sink our ship, and she was right, so maybe give her a break?”

“She could have killed herself!”

“Right now, she’s only thinking about how she could have killed _you_ ,” Toph said. “And congratulations. If you wanted your sister to not be a firebender anymore, you might have just succeeded.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I heard her telling your aunties she would never bend again,” Toph said. “And when a bender starts thinking like that, odds are good they’ll prove themselves right. Even if she tried, I don’t think she could light a candle right now.”

“You don’t know Azula,” Zuko said. “She’s probably just upset that she burned her hands.”

“That’s a weird way to talk about your sister.”

“I’m just being realistic,” he said. “You have to be with her. I love her and I promised our mother that I’ll do whatever it takes to keep her safe. But to keep _myself_ safe, I have to remember who she is. You need to know that too.”

“If keeping her safe is your only priority,” Toph said, “why did you come back for me?”

He paused for a moment. “My mother worked hard to teach Azula how to care about other people. I decided that telling her to stop caring about you wasn’t keeping my promise… even if the only reason she cared was because she was bored.”

“I think you’re underestimating her,” Toph said. “Is it so hard to just trust that she actually cares about you?”

“No, it’s not hard at all,” Zuko said. “It’s easy. I do it all the time. And every time…”

He gestured to the rag draped over the left half of his face.

“Every time,” he finished, “I get burned.”

* * *

It was past midnight, but she was still awake. The glow of the hunter’s moon on the ice outside her window had called to her, and she was dancing in the silent palace courtyard: an ancient ice warrior’s dance, one she shared with no one but the light reflecting in the courtyard’s fountains. She paused her dance only when the vast wings of the message albatross passing overhead blocked the moonlight for a split second as it soared toward its roosting tower. By her silent command, water rushed up from the fountains, wrapped itself around her waist, and lifted her up through the tower window.

The half-asleep birdkeeper startled to see her and rose quickly to his feet with an awkward salute.

“An albatross just arrived wearing my family’s colors,” she said. “I’ll take the message.”

The keeper swallowed. “It was addressed to Chief Hakoda by name…”

“My father is asleep,” she said. “I’m not.”

She gave him a disarming smile and waited while he hesitated, weighing what she imagined must be a very complicated series of political and practical considerations. After a moment’s thought, he apparently came to the determination that Sokka was several hundred miles away and she was not, and he silently handed her the message.

She unrolled it and read it over. Then she read it again.

“Huh,” she said.


End file.
